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Hastings Alumni Mag-Fall 2012

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Accomplished Attorney and Renaissance Man
Art Macomber ’03 practices property and water law in the Pacific Northwest. “If it touches dirt, we do it,” he says.
After struggling with the California bar, he is now licensed in his home state of Idaho as well as neighboring Washing-
ton, where he teaches law at Gonzaga University School of Law. Due to client
demands, he is now studying for the Montana bar. “By this time, I should be able
to take any bar in the country,” Art says.
Art went to law school at age 45 after a variety of careers, including working
as a stagehand. He and his wife and two small children lived in a 37-foot trailer
at a KOA campground in Petaluma during law school, and Art rode to school
on his Harley-Davidson. “We hauled the trailer out every six months, lived at
the fairgrounds for a week, and then hauled it back to the KOA and put it in a
different space.”
The frugality suits his practice. “There is no one cheaper in the world than an
Idaho dirt farmer,” he says. In law school, Art was a tireless reader. “I read every
case all the way through my third year. Charlie Knapp tortured us. I read 27 law
reviews my first fall at Hastings, in addition to all the cases and homework. I was
pretty much crazed.”
His ambitious literary appetite continues. “When I went to Justice Antonin Scalia’s Separation of Powers CLE
course at Lake Tahoe, I thought I better read The Federalist Papers again. And then I realized I had never read Mon-
tesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws.” These days, he is torn between reading books on Christian doctrine and studying
for the Montana bar. “Eventually, I have to get back to the 18th century.” For Art’s complete reading list, contact him
via www.macomberlaw.com.
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blanck writes: “I’ve been a Karl olson recently received convention in San Jose by community elected to the
lawyer since 1984, but I’ve a Freedom of Information Karlene Goller, deputy bench in Brooklyn, she
been rafting since 1973. Award from the California general counsel of the Los says, “it has been a thrill to
Rafting is more fun.” Newspaper Publishers Angeles Times. ~ debra preside over gay and lesbian
Association, “in recognition (edison) silber was elected weddings since the New
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ellen staley (
is associate director of
freedom of information, and justice of the New York kiba 81was recently appointedin Brooklyn as an acting
the First Amendment,
planned giving at Stanford
University. lorraine H. a
a free press.” The award was State Supreme Court. The
presented at CNPA’s annual first member of the LGBT
by Hawaii Gov. Neil
UC HaSTINGS 45